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Unlike driving, train travel requires very little concentration. It’s a great place to lose oneself in one’s thoughts, brought back to the real world only by a fellow passenger falling into you with a cup of tea on the way back from the buffet.

From the accounts of those who commute from Stoke-on-Trent to Birmingham, I believe what I experienced is par for the course.

Passengers pay £300 a month for the privilege of standing in a doorway being breathed on by a middle manager from Droitwich.

The answer would appear simple – stick another couple of carriages on. Yet this never happens. Commuters are told that platforms are too short, that rolling stock is unavailable, or that the driver is still awaiting their long vehicle licence.

Of course, there is then the added issue of first class, a half empty carriage peopled solely by those who enjoy paying double for a cup of tea and a lamp. In the old days, there used to be first, second, and third class. This was felt to be absurd. And so now we just have first and third.

Because people have no choice but to tolerate these conditions – driving from Stoke-on-Trent to Birmingham at rush hour is only slightly less frustrating than being wrongly imprisoned for murder – the train operators know they can get away with them.

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Unlike South America where civil protest generally entails wanton violence, riots, and the disembowelling of a mayor, here we send a tweet to a disinterested employee picking their nose in a customer service HQ in a dimly lit corner of Bedfordshire.

Said employee will then click on the relevant apology before returning to the Tea Break Quickie in the Daily Star.

It’s hard to think this was what Robert Stephenson had in mind when he designed his famed Rocket in 1829. OK, he didn’t stick a roof on the carriage but at least everyone was sat down.

To my mind, it’s time we reclaimed our railways. While everyone moaned about British Rail, and the food reminded many of small armaments dug up from the Second World War, it had a certain charm.

OK, the seats were dusty, everything smelt of diesel, and occasionally the locomotive left the track, but at least we knew some fatcat wasn’t lining their pockets at our expense.

Some see renationalisation as a step backwards, but in fact it might not be a step back far enough.

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In the Lake District, a vintage train operator has stepped in to provide rail services from the mainline Oxenholme station down the branch to Windermere after Northern Rail cancelled the service amid a timetable fiasco.

A 40-year-old diesel engine and carriages now carries passengers free of charge on the 10-mile journey, with the cost covered by the Department of Transport.

I cannot praise this system highly enough, to the extent that I wonder if it something similar might not be recreated on the Stoke-on-Trent to Birmingham line.